 The Hera spacecraft mission proposed by the European Space Agency is heading to a binary asteroid to support NASA's Planetary Defense Plan against potential asteroid collision. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART mission, is scheduled to ram with a binary asteroid in October 2022 and then again on 2024. After the impact, all connections to the binary asteroid will stop, and essential information will be missing. At this point, the spacecraft Hera will then be heading to the location to measure all possible effects of NASA's intentional collision with the asteroid. The Hera spacecraft is scheduled to reach the target in 2026. By this time, NASA's DART had historically altered the duration of the orbit of the target asteroid. Now not to cause any panic here or anything, but this is all in a certain time frame that this work is being carried out, and you may or may not be aware of the mountainous sized asteroid that is on a path to pass very close to the Earth and impact with the Earth cannot be ruled out. Are these measures that are being carried out in collaboration with every space-reaching country in the world a direct result in the preparedness plan to save the Earth from an impact with the asteroid Apophis? This asteroid is constantly monitored since its discovery in 2004, and though we can rule out an impact in the year 2029 on its first close approach, we cannot rule out impact on the second flyby in 2036. Because of the trajectory and the gravitational effects, it is highly likely to incur from the Earth in 2029 and by the sun. This could alter the course enough to put it on a direct collision with the Earth, and if this is the destiny, we are doomed. That is unless there is an active global movement taking place by world governments to mobilize space technology in an effort to save the Earth. We believe this could be the case, and in our Space News series, we are going to keep you informed and tell you why. Wait, till you hear this. The early mission's target is a pair of near-Earth asteroids called Didymus. They consist of two bodies, a Didymus A, or what is informally called the Didy Main, and the Didymos B, or what is informally called as the Didy Moon. Kindot fans are going to love these names in comparison. The latter is about the same size as the Great Pyramid of Giza. The mass of other planetary bodies can be measured by calculating their gravitational pull on a spacecraft. However, this method will not work with the Didy Moose because Didy Moon's gravitational field will be overpowered by the Didy Main. Hence, Didy Moon, which is orbiting Didy Main, is the primary focus of the Hera spacecraft mission. After Dart's impact to Didy Moon, Hera will survive its mass, the shape of the crater created by the collusion, and its physical and dimensional properties. The Hera spacecraft will also be deploying Europa's first deep space CubeSats. Such a binary asteroid system is the perfect testbed for a planetary defense experiment, but is also an entirely new environment for asteroid investigations. Binary asteroids comprised about 15% of all identified asteroids, but binaries had never been explored before. Didy Moon will become the smallest asteroid to be visited. The thinking is that if they can successfully achieve this on a small scale, then with the correct calculations, this can also be done on much larger scales. All images and relevant data to be acquired by Hera will then be used to analyze Didy Main. For one, Didy Main's mass can be calculated with about 90% accuracy by measuring the wobble that Didy Moon causes the Didy Main. The key data gathered by Hera will turn a grand but one-off experiment into a well-understood planetary defense technique, one that could in principle be repeated if we ever need to stop an incoming asteroid like Apophis. The mission specifically involved testing a planetary defense strategy called the Kinetic Impactor Technique, which involves striking the asteroid to shift its orbit. This strategy is the best possible means to defend Earth from future asteroid impact. ESA's update on Hera comes after NASA's announcement made last week about the National Near Earth Object Preparedness Plan, the plan which was originally released by the White House detailed steps that government and the space agency would implement in an event that an asteroid hits Earth. Early this week, a study which analyzed data from 2013 to 2016 found that there could still be thousands of unconfirmed near-Earth objects that are approaching Earth. The study called for concerned parties to devise an accurate statistical data of these unconfirmed space objects. Indeed on June 21st an asteroid exploded over Russia and NASA was unable to detect it until after its impact. So there is no doubt a global system is needed as we prepare to develop into a space-faring civilization. In the beginning the solar system was little more than a cloud of dust and gas then cold temperatures caused the center of the cloud to collapse forming the Sun. The newborn star lit up with nuclear fusion sending light and heat out into the spinning circumstellar disk. Soon that material coalesced into gas planets, ice giants and rocky worlds creating the solar system we know today. For years asteroids were thought of as the leftovers of planet formation, chunks of material that never quite made it to planet size and that were drawn into the crowded belt of rocky remnants that circles the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. But according to a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, these were once pieces of worlds too. A vast majority of the half million bodies in the inner asteroid belt may in fact be shrapnel from as few as five parent bodies. But the tangled orbits of those lost worlds meant they were doomed to collide, producing fragments that also collide, producing more fragments in a cataclysmic cascade that's been going on for more than four billion years. The finding doesn't only eliminate a mystery of the asteroid belt, it can also help resolve a debate about the formation of the eight planets including Earth. There is an important, if apparent, implication of the idea that asteroids are actually fragments of larger bodies, it means asteroids are born big. That finding may help resolve a question about planet formation that has baffled scientists for years. According to the traditional story of the origin of the solar system, the planets form slowly from accretion as particles in the circumstellar disk clump together to great pebbles, then slightly larger spheres, and on and on until they reach their current size. But when scientists try to recreate this story with computer models, it breaks down. Rather than growing, these incipient planets tend to splinter after reaching pebble size. How could this process result in bodies the size of those in the asteroid belt, let alone whole planets? In the space between Mars and Jupiter, the tremendous gravity of the solar system's largest planet may have made it difficult to grow a large object. The smaller bodies that did emerge, which were probably a tenth of the size of a planet such as Earth, could not have survived the ensuing chaos and collisions. They broke apart and formed the asteroid belt we know today. The mystery object discovered earlier this year traveling through our solar system is showing no signs of any alien life, despite plenty of efforts to look and listen for a signal. Perhaps it's ironic that the object should arrive in a year when we celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of science fiction author, author C. Clarke. One of the most popular novels, the award-winning rendezvous with Rama, describes the high-speed entry of a cylindrical object into the solar system. It's initially thought to be an asteroid, but a subsequent exploration reveals it to be an alien spaceship. Astronomers named our solar system visitor a Maomao, which is Hawaiian for scout or messenger. From our distant exploration of a Maomao, we know it's a red-brown cigar-shaped object about 400 meters long and is moving so fast that it must have started its journey in some distant stellar system. But we still have no idea what it is. We know it's not a comet because it has no halo, and we know it's not a normal asteroid because we've never seen one that's so elongated about ten times longer than it is wide, and its speed rules out any origin within the solar system or the Oort cloud where comets come from. Could it be an alien scout craft? This might seem the stuff of comic book fiction, yet we know there are other Earth-like planets out there and some may host other civilizations. We must at least consider the possibility that it is an artificial object from one of these civilizations. That would be consistent with the cigar shape. We know that the best shape for a large interstellar spacecraft is not like the fictional Starship Enterprise of Star Trek fame, but more likely is elongated to minimize the damage from collision with interstellar dust. Perhaps it used the Sun to propel itself in the direction it was destined, and perhaps this is in fact the way alien civilizations travel through space as the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed this week that the object did in fact get a massive boost in speed as it slingshots its way around the Sun. And now with all the hype about space forces and planetary defenses, etc., you really can't help but wonder just what exactly has spooked the establishment. Are these announcements all at the same time really just a coincidence? Did they detect something from this asteroid? It is Hawaiian for messengers, so that would suggest it had a message, and it may well be the case that we heed this message and are not preparing to defend the Earth not only from a potential impact from Apophis, but also from other objects that could enter the atmosphere today or tomorrow, and we wouldn't even see it coming. That's called living on the edge with far too much uncertainty in place. Makes sense that we should be more aware of this threat and how to deal with it, right? Anyway guys, what do you consider the true to be? Isn't it apparent that something is going on? All we can do is just join the dots guys. If an asteroid really is on a collision course with the Earth, then we can't do anything about it anyway. We are a civilization that relies on protection from our leaders. Perhaps it's time that the balance in power gets spread much more evenly between the people? Maybe not. No one really knows anyway, but what's going on? Comments below and as always, thank you for watching.